5-21-18 China launched a satellite to help explore the moon’s far sideA satellite launched on 21 May will allow China's upcoming moon lander – the first to visit the far side – to receive commands and send data back to Earth. China is getting ready for a trip to the far side of the moon. On 21 May, the China National Space Administration launched a satellite that will relay information between Earth and a planned moon lander and rover, both set to launch in late 2018. The satellite – called Queqiao, which means Magpie Bridge – launched from southwest China’s Xichang Satellite Launch Center aboard a Long March 4C rocket. Chang’e 4, the moon lander, will be the first spacecraft ever to land on the far side of the moon, if all goes to plan. Because the far side always faces away from Earth, the lander will not be able to communicate directly with its operators – any commands sent to it, or data sent back, would be blocked by the moon itself. To solve that problem, a satellite that sits in the line of sight both of the lander and Earth’s surface is needed to relay information back and forth. There is a special spot in space that’s ideal for that, called L2, which is about 64,000 kilometres past the moon. At that spot, the combined gravity of the sun and Earth counteract the forces that could tug an object out of orbit. It’s a perfect spot to park a spacecraft, because it can sit there without constantly firing its thrusters. It’s also a place particularly well-suited for Queqiao. From L2, the satellite will have a view of the entire far side when the moon passes in front of Earth. Queqiao will be placed into a “halo” orbit that circles L2, so that it will still have a line of sight to Earth even when is the moon blocks out part of the planet.

5-20-18 China is set to launch a satellite to support a future lunar roverThe rover will be the first to visit the farside of the moon. The Chinese space program is set to launch a satellite aimed at supporting future communications from a planned mission to the farside of the moon. The Chang’e-4 mission, which will include a rover and a lander, would be the first to visit the moon’s farside. In the first of a two-launch plan to get all the pieces in place, the supporting relay satellite, named Queqiao, is scheduled to lift off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on May 21, Chinese media report. The three-day launch window opens at 5 a.m. Beijing time (5 p.m. EDT on May 20), according to the Chinese online news site GB Times. Queqiao will go to an orbit beyond the moon that will allow it to communicate simultaneously with points on both the moon and Earth. It will also carry a Dutch-built radio telescope, which will be switched on in 2019 to search for long-wavelength signals from the universe’s first stars. The Chang’e-4 rover and lander were originally built as backups for the Chang’e-3 mission, which landed two spacecraft on the moon in 2013. Another 2019 mission, Chang’e-5, aims to bring back the first rocks from the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.

4-27-18 Toughest ever heat shields made of springy sponge-like stuffChinese scientists have developed a compressible aerogel that has shown in early heat shield tests to be 5 times more resilient than previous materials. The first highly compressible yet heat-resistant material for spacecraft heat shields has been developed – and in early tests, it is proving five times more resilient to vibration and shock damage than any previous material. Heat shield tiles like those used on NASA’s space shuttle, which prevented it from being incinerated on re-entry, were often found to be heavily damaged when the spacecraft landed. This made reuse of the shuttle a slow and expensive business. The damage was due to the fragile nature of the ultralight, ceramic aerogel that the tiles were made of. This material has such low density it is known as ‘frozen smoke’ – its filigree-like structure of silicon dioxide nanoparticles means it weighs only as much as three times the same volume of air. But they are utterly miraculous heat insulators: it’s possible to hold a piece in one hand while blow torching the other side of it, with no ill effects. Still, their fragility has always been their downfall. Until now, that is. A team of chemists led by Bin Ding and Yang Si at Donghua University in China, have engineered a compressible aerogel that can cope with severe vibration without shattering. A traditional ceramic aerogel, says Si, is comprised of silicon dioxide nanoparticles strung together like discrete beads on a necklace, which is inherently brittle. Their new aerogel, called a ceramic nanofibrous aerogel, is made from continuous, flexible ceramic nanofibres which are much less prone to snapping. (Webmaster's comment: Another cutting-edge invention by the Chinese.)

4-26-18 Robot port in China to unload shipping containers without humansDriverless vehicles will make the global shipping network cheaper and more efficient – and cost jobs. On an overcast spring morning in the port of Caofeidian in northeastern China, a vast ship-to-shore crane whisks a fully-laden shipping container through the air and onto an idling truck. Though there’s a human sitting inside, a careful observer would spot that the truck is calling all the shots. That’s because the vehicle is one of a fleet of five autonomous trucks that a Chinese startup called TuSimple is using to ferry containers around the terminal. A few other ports use trucks that follow paths marked by magnets or sensors embedded in the ground but Caofeidaian is the first to use vehicles that can navigate a port by themselves. It’s like moving from trams to cars. The goal of the pilot project is to demonstrate the ability of autonomous vehicles to perform the role of a so-called “terminal tractor,” bearing containers from the shore to the cargo yard. “At this stage, we want to achieve high-level reliability and consistency of autonomous terminal tractors rather than moving lots of containers,” says TuSimple’s Bruce Ouyang. By the end of the year Ouyang wants to replace all the human-piloted terminal trucks deployed at Caofeidian with 20 self-driving models. The cranes loading the containers will be autonomous too, with a central system coordinating the movements of both the cranes and trucks. In total, they will have to process 300,000 standard-sized containers per year to match the current throughput of the port.

4-18-18 Will China beat the world to nuclear fusion and clean energy?In a world with an ever-increasing demand for electricity and a deteriorating environment, Chinese scientists are leading the charge to develop what some see as the holy grail of energy. Imagine limitless energy with virtually no waste at all: this is the lofty promise of nuclear fusion. On Science Island in Eastern China's Anhui Province, there is a large gleaming metal doughnut encased in an enormous shiny, round box about as big as a two-storey apartment. This is the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (or EAST). Inside, hydrogen atoms fuse and become helium which can generate heat at several times the temperature of the sun's core. Powerful magnets then control the reaction, which could one day produce vast amounts of electricity if maintained. Around the globe, they are trying to master nuclear fusion - in the United States, Japan, Korea, Brazil and European Union - but none can hold it steady for as long as the team in Anhui. Right now that's 100 seconds and it gets longer every year. Here they're already talking about goals which are 10 times as long, at temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius. But there's a reason why fusion has eluded scientists and engineers since the early advances in the Soviet Union in the 1950s. It is really difficult. (Webmaster's comment: Notice it was the Soviet Union that led the way. My money is on the Chinese, the new leaders of high tech!)

4-14-18 On the ground at today’s March for Science ralliesThe March for Science returns with rallies around the globe in support of science-based policies. Follow our coverage from New York and elsewhere. The March for Science returned today for its second year, with marches and rallies planned for 200 cities worldwide. Last year’s march was one of the largest public displays of support for science, drawing 1.3 million people around the globe to rallies in more than 450 cities. David Kanter, an organiser of the march in New York, says the theme of the day is the intersection of science and education. “We really want to focus on the power of science and scientific training to empower young people, to empower communities that have often been underrepresented in society and in science,” he says. “The theme for all the marches this year is accountability, making sure that all of our elected officials are held accountable in terms of being able to respect science.” This morning in Washington Square Park in New York, the day started slow as a small crowd began to gather under a cloudless sky. Some, like mechanical engineer Patrick Landry, had attended marches and rallies last year. He came out today because “carbon emissions keep going up, we need to send a message to our administration and the world that we need to find a solution,” he said. Other marchers, like Liz Ndoye, a retired teacher from Hoboken, did not attend last year but felt that current events make this year’s march particularly important. “I’m terrified to live in a time when our leaders say science is fake news or a conspiracy. Marches make everyone aware there are people concerned about, for example, the EPA rolling back regulations,” Ndoye said.

4-13-18 What to expect from this Saturday’s March for ScienceThe March for Science on 14 April will involve rallies in more than 200 cities, as a sequel to last year’s inaugural march in protest of president Donald Trump. What started as a march is turning into a movement. This year’s March for Science will involve rallies on 14 April in more than 200 cities, as a sequel to last year’s inaugural march in protest of president Donald Trump and his administration’s anti-science rhetoric. This time around, the day of protest aims to be more than just crowds of people wielding witty signs – though those will likely still be in high supply. “The theme of the march last year has hardened and endured into this year,” says David Kanter, co-organiser of the New York City march. “Given that last year it was the early months of the Trump administration, there was more anxiety there. But the ultimate goals of building a community of science advocates and influencing policy with science are still the driving forces.” In Washington, DC, crowds will descend on the National Mall for a morning of talks and performances before the march. Cities around the world have adapted the March for Science to their own communities, including seminars to encourage more scientific activism. Marches in other places, including New York City and London, will also promote voter registration efforts. “We’re hoping people come away from the march knowing more about organisations in their own backyard,” says Jillian Sequeira, a coordinator of the London March for Science. For the New York organisers, the focus is on influencing local and national politics. “Our driving concern is making sure that the work of scientists is used in decision-making to make smart policy,” says Kanter.

4-11-18 Science fans have many reasons to take to the streets againA global rally against the denigration of science was a huge event in 2017. The need for a repeat this weekend is strong, says Jonathan Berman. WHEN I first started recruiting for a scientists’ march on Washington DC in early 2017, it seemed like an uphill battle. I was just a researcher without money, connections or crowd-pulling charisma, moved to action by the election of Donald Trump, a powerful climate change denier and anti-vaxxer, as US president. Of course, science was already beset with human problems. Research funding had been declining and although people often said they loved science, they would then say how acupuncture had “cured” their back pain, or produce a salad of words like “quantum” and “consciousness” with no regard to physics or neuroscience. Science was well loved, but much abused and rarely understood. I felt nearly alone, facing a world of fantasists, believers and deniers. That feeling turned out to be wrong. Thanks to thousands of volunteers and hundreds of thousands of protesters, the Washington event became the March for Science, the largest public science education event in history. It extended to cities around the world and saw more than 1 million people participate. It is hard to quantify its impact. But a year later, more scientists than ever have run for political office. There are new expos and outreach projects. Sound science seems to be entering the cultural lexicon as a virtue, like honesty or hard work. More people are aware of science denial and more are taking on leadership roles in science education and advocacy. And science advocates are poised to rally again. The second March for Science is on 14 April. There are good reasons for a repeat.

10-25-17 How science transformed the world in 100 yearsHow science transformed the world in 100 yearsIn an essay for the BBC, Nobel Prize-winner and Royal Society President Sir Venki Ramakrishnan contemplates the nature of scientific discovery - how it has transformed our worldview in a short space of time, and why we need to be just as watchful today about the uses of research as we've ever been. If we could miraculously transport even the smartest people from around 1900 to today's world, they would be simply astonished at how we now understand things that had puzzled humans for centuries. Just over a hundred years ago, people had no idea how we inherit and pass on traits or how a single cell could grow into an organism. They didn't know that atoms themselves had structure - the word itself means indivisible. They didn't know that matter has very strange properties that defy common sense. Or why there is gravity. And they had no idea how things began, whether it was life on earth or the universe itself. These days because of fundamental discoveries we can answer or at least begin to answer those mysteries. That has transformed the way we see the world and often our everyday lives. Much of what we take for granted today is a result of an interplay of fundamental science and technology, with each driving the other forward. Almost every modern invention has one or often many fundamental discoveries that make it possible. Sometimes, these fundamental discoveries were hundreds of years old. Neither jet engines nor rockets would be possible without a knowledge of Newton's laws of motion. There are big moments in science, like the discovery of the structure of DNA that shift our perspectives. But even that discovery was a milestone that built on work by Darwin and Mendel and presaged today's biotechnology where the entire DNA of a human being - the human genome - has been sequenced. That in turn has given us the ability to figure out how things go wrong in genetic diseases and potentially how to fix them. Scientists were recently able to modify the genes of a young girl to cure her cancer. We are no longer a complete black box, although our complexity is such that we are only just beginning to understand how our genes regulate the body and how they interact with our environment.

8-13-17 White supremacy:We are not the home of the free. We are a land of hatred for all non-whites and non-Christians, and denying all others their rights as human beings is the objective of the white supremacy groups. They would establish a White Male Dictatorship and establish death camps just like the Nazis did for all others; Jews, Muslims, Hispanics, Immigrants, LGBTs, any non-white or non-Christian! They would re-establish salvery and lynchings, and women would become totally subservient to men! We cannot claim to be the land of freedom as long as these groups continue to exist in America. In Europe they are outlawed and imprisioned. Just being a racist there will put you in prison. The Europeons know full well from the Nazis what kind of evil these groups represent. As long as these terrorist groups are tolerated America can not claim any moral superiority over other nations. WE ARE the immoral nation of the 21st century!

8-8-17 Americans already feeling effects of climate change, says reportAmericans already feeling effects of climate change, says reportA leaked report says evidence that humans are responsible for climate change is strong – but it remains to be seen how the Trump White House will react. Americans are already feeling the effects of climate change, according to a leaked US report. Since 1980, the average temperature in the US has risen significantly, with the past few decades the warmest for 1500 years. The report, written by scientists from 13 federal agencies, is still awaiting approval from the Trump administration before it can be officially published, but a draft copy was obtained by The New York Times. “Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans,” say the authors in the draft report, with thousands of studies contributing to an irrefutable body of evidence. “Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, are primarily responsible for recent observed climate change,” they say. The report points out that the ability to attribute some extreme weather events to climate change is improving. It says there is relatively strong evidence that humans contributed to the European heatwave in 2003 and the record temperatures in Australia in 2013. Globally, it is extremely likely that humans are responsible for over half the mean temperature increase since 1951, the authors say. The leak comes as it was reported by The Guardian yesterday that senior officials at the US Department of Agriculture are now instructing staff to speak about “weather extremes” instead of climate change. “It is disturbing that scientists had to leak a draft of a new government report warning of dire climate change impacts because they fear the Trump administration will try to suppress it,” says Michael Mann, professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University. “Orwell’s Ministry of Truth has arrived.” (Webmaster's comment: The fix is in!)

7-25-17 Spanish deal to tackle gender-based violenceSpanish deal to tackle gender-based violenceSpain's political parties are celebrating a "historic" €1bn (£895m; $1.2bn) five-year programme to tackle gender-based violence. The measures include providing victims of abuse with six months' unconditional unemployment benefit to give them a new start, and outlawing imprisoned abusers from being visited by their children. The agreement was reached after six months and 66 expert hearings. Reports say 870 women died from gender-based violence between 2003 and 2016. (Webmaster's comment: Over 15,000 American women have been murdered by their husbands of boyfriends between 2003 and 2016!) So far in 2017, at least 31 women have died along with six minors. (Webmaster's comment: So far over 600 American women have been murdered by husbands and boyfriends in 2017.) Sixteen minors have been orphaned. Spanish politicians have pursued successive programmes to address the issue since 1997, when 60-year-old Ana Orantes was beaten, thrown over a balcony and then burned to death by her ex-husband after repeatedly complaining to authorities about his violent behaviour. She had been forced to divide her home with her husband on the order of a divorce court. Among the 200 measures that received parliamentary endorsement late on Monday are:

The status of victim will be extended to women who have not yet filed a criminal complaint, to allow them to access safeguards and assistance

Mechanisms for identifying victims of gender-based violence will be established in hospital emergency rooms and primary care

Children orphaned by gender-based violence will have priority access to state benefits including educational support. Their guardians (excluding the abuser) will receive tax benefits and priority access to housing

Tougher sanctions for gender-based crimes committed on the internet

School curriculums to include lessons to tackle sexism and raise awareness of the feminist movement

(Webmaster's comment: We need to do the same things in American! Over 17 times as many women die from gender-based violence in America as in Spain!)

7-25-17 China set to launch an 'unhackable' internet communicationChina set to launch an 'unhackable' internet communicationAs malicious hackers mount ever more sophisticated attacks, China is about to launch a new, "unhackable" communications network - at least in the sense that any attack on it would be quickly detected. The technology it has turned to is quantum cryptography, a radical break from the traditional encryption methods around. The Chinese project in the city of Jinan has been touted as a milestone by state media. The pioneering project is also part of a bigger story: China is taking the lead in a technology in which the West has long been hesitant to invest. In the Jinan network, some 200 users from the military, government, finance and electricity sectors will be able to send messages safe in the knowledge that only they are reading them. China's push in quantum communication means the country is taking huge strides developing applications that might make the increasingly vulnerable internet more secure. Applications that other countries soon might find themselves buying from China. So, what is this technology into which the country is pouring massive resources? (Webmaster's comment: Again China takes the lead. They are not cutting their investments in science, unlike Trump is cutting ours!)

5-14-17 There's no waking up from America's Trump nightmareThere's no waking up from America's Trump nightmareThe events of this week have confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Oval Office is occupied by an ignorant, impulse-driven lunatic. Just how much of a lunatic is President Donald J. Trump? So much so that he fired the director of the FBI in a fit of pique despite the fact that the FBI is conducting an investigation of whether and to what extent the president's own campaign colluded with Russian intelligence services to manipulate the election that landed Trump in the White House. If self-inflicted wounds can range from a paper cut to a bullet in the brain, this is something like the accidental amputation of a leg just above the knee: The victim can still get around, but he's undeniably and irreversibly hobbled, not to mention weakened by a near-fatal loss of blood. But not even that gruesome metaphor manages to capture the extent of our president's distinctive form of self-destructive madness. There isn't a single office holder, political operative, experienced staffer, or journalist in Washington who wouldn't have grasped in an instant that firing James Comey under such circumstances would be massively harmful to the president's efforts to defend himself against the Russian allegations and could well open himself up to a credible (or perhaps more than credible) charge of obstruction of justice. Even bomb-thrower extraordinaire Stephen Bannon understood it!

Sioux Falls Free Thinkers is Home for all those of Free Thought with Open Minds! This group includes Atheists, Agnostics, and Humanists, those interested in science and Scientists, those who love animals and Zoologists, and Feminists and those wanting to help abused women, but all those with open minds are welcome. Free Thinkers are those that want a world without rules and controls on thought, without mental borders and boundaries. A world where anything is possible.

Free Your Mind! There Is No Spoon!(From the movie, The Matrix)

The one thing the writers of the Freethinker definition seem to have forgotten is the idea of having an Open Mind, the basic concept behind what made Freethinking possible in the first place. We at Sioux Falls Free Thinkers reject this closed-minded rigidity of thought, so, even though we agree with and endorse much of the Freethinking definition, we took the word Freethinking back to its original roots and call ourselves "Free Thinkers" to symbolize Open Minds, Free Thought, and true Free Thinking once again.

Our meetings and social gatherings are posted at Sioux Falls Free Thinkers on Meetup.com. Sioux Falls Free Thinkers Upcoming Events can be seen on the Meetup.com Calendar.

The Sioux Falls Free Thinkers group will never have any dues. Membership is not required to attend our meetings. This group will probably never have any formal rules except treating other members and their opinions with respect, and giving everyone equal time to speak. This group will never purge members for expressing their opinions or for forming their own group of open-minded people. The only loose requirement is that members, and those attending our meetings, have an interest in one of the subjects of our five websites.

Bring out the protest songs!We're going to need them again!

We are going to need to take to the streets again and voice our resistance to oppression. Trump will:

Sign an executive order that gives people the right to discriminate against others while masking it as "religious freedom"

Push for a repeal of the federal law that bans partisan politicking by nonprofit organizations (i.e. churches will be able endorse and give money to political candidates)

Put extremists like Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court and on lower federal courts

Eviscerate (gut) reproductive rights

Roll back LGBTQ rights

Embrace crude forms of xenophobia

Appoint advisors who've make a career out of peddling hate

Call for a registry of Muslims (same as Nazi Germany did to Jews)

Trade in ugly forms of Islamophobia

Not demand gender equality

Not reject sexism and misogyny (brags about sexually assaulting women)

Work to have gay people cured through therapy

Work to have church-state separation removed because it is an "extra-constitutional doctrine" and is a recent thing that is "unhistorical and is unconstitutional"

This is all detailed in the latest issue of The Humanist. I strongly suggest reading it.

And this list doesn't even include his opposition to plans to stop global warming, to gut the EPA, and to repeal Obamacare putting at least 10 million Americans back on no healthcare except to charge people whatever medical providers can get away with and putting them into bankruptcy.

I also think it will also only be a matter of time before safety (work) camps will be established for all Muslims so they can be "safe" from attacks by white American males and so others can be "safe" from attacks by Muslims. These safety (work) camps will be expanded to include LGBTQs and Atheists in Trump's second term where these deviants can be "corrected", physicallly if necessary, and blacks and Hispanics will be begin to be included in the camps in Trump's third and fourth terms. (Yes, that's right. Once he's got power there's no way he's going to let it go.) Essentially white aryan males will rule and white women will become their breed stock to support the pure white aryan race. That's how the Nazis thought and that's how American white aryan males also think.

The Nazis modeled their race purity laws on the American race laws of the 1930's. To "purify" America the American government will simply revert to using those laws and expand on them as the Nazis in Germany did.

History repeats itself. And we now have a man in power who has no respect for the law or the rights of others. I hope I am wrong, but we should expect the worst. The people he has appointed to power are all proven haters of others and they will do everything they can to advance their agenda of hate. You can depend on it.

The Southern Proverty Law Center and the BBC report867 Hate Crimes in the ten days after the election.That's a jump to over 86 per day!And It's only begun!

Note that many of these hate groups are Christian Based.But there are no Muslim or Jewish Based Hate Groups.

But above all Be Your Own Heroine, Be Your Own Hero. You achieve nothing for yourself by living vicariously off the skills and achievements of others. It's What You Do That Matters. Cheer and applaud your own skills and achievements and be proud of them, Be Proud of Who You Are and What You Do.

Don't Just Think You Are Right, Know You Are. Don't hesitate, don't be unsure, don't let others doubts cloud your judgment, your power of reason. Others will constantly try to manipulate you, control you, dominate you, intimidate you, tell you that you must do this or can't do that, Ignore Them! Your mind, your own thoughts are the only thing you can be sure of, trust your thoughts instead of theirs.

Your mind, your conscious mind is the most powerful tool ever evolved.Trust it, act on what it tells you. Be positive! If you think you're rightThen Knowyou're right and Follow What You Think is the best course.Break Free! There Is No Spoon!

We look forward to seeing you at one or more of our events and meetings!

We have member websites for Atheists, Agnostics, and Humanists, for those interested in science and Scientists, for those who love animals and Zoologists, and for Feminists; for those who wish to help abused women, and for abused women themselves. Check out these other websites at Member Websites.